The Benefits of Plaid
by acollectivemind
Summary: Now fallen and Graceless, Castiel discovers that being a human being means he's cold. Fluffy one-shot.


**A/N: This story is cross -posted to AO3. I make no profit from these characters or from writing this.**

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Castiel had always wondered at the many layers that Winchesters wore-jackets upon plaid upon tshirts upon undershirt-but now that his heart beat a slower, more mortal tempo, he understood: humans were cold.

Perhaps this was why he'd ended up in a Wal-Mart Supercenter, scouring the men's outerwear selection. He stared for several minutes at the selection of denim jackets. He had seen Sam wear something similar the last time the Winchesters had called him in on a case of demonic possession. Had he seen Dean wear something like this before?

He could almost see the older Winchester, leaning back against the Impala, arms crossed, pervasive scowl, saying, "Jean jackets are for girls who wear scrunchies in their hair, Sam. Not for grown ass men. They don't even keep you _warm_, dude."

Cas moved past the denim jackets.

When Metatron had first ripped his Grace from his vessel, Cas had felt hollow, like someone had scraped the very thing that made him _Castiel_ from himself. He imagined it was a lot like Dean's pie felt like, when the hunter was done separating every last drop of filling from the pie crust (Dean had once confided in the him that he didn't trust many piemakers when it came to crusts. It was an art form, he'd said).

Now, though, Castiel just felt cold.

Cold, and according to the middle-aged woman he'd encountered in the parking lot, he looked like "something the cat had dragged in." Having only interrogated one feline, Castiel couldn't vouch for the truth of the woman's statement. It was only when the new human shivered, that the woman's eyes softened, the corner creases relaxing, as she said, "Oh honey, you've got nowhere to go, do you?"

"I...I have lost my home," Castiel had admitted, "Or rather, it is no longer open to me."

The woman-Ida, she said her name was-had blamed the recession and grabbed a blanket from the backseat of her suburban (with five kids, you always had blankets around, she said). She wrapped the blanket around him, gently, as if she were dressing the Madonna in a life-sized nativity scene, and ushered him into the Wal-mart with her.

"Please," she'd said, "Let me buy you some clothes. You look so cold, honey. What's your name, anyway?"

"Cas."

"Okay, Cas, I know a thing or two about hard times, and it's about time I paid it forward."

If Castiel hadn't known any better, he would have thought her an angel. If he'd still had his Grace, he could have looked into her soul and seen the truth of her, and known if she was worth trusting. Now, he followed her because he had to trust himself, trust his own instinct that she was a person worthy of trust.

He had trusted Metatron, and he can still feel the ghost of Metatron's violation, a jagged and searing shredding of his angelic form. He had trusted Hael, and the back of his head still throbbed.

Ida was right though, Castiel was cold. He'd felt it increasingly since he had encountered Hael, the incremental decrease in body temperature. As a celestial being, his Grace had burned through him, white hot and unforgiving as holy fire, but now the chill of mortality crept into his human vessel. His body. It slithered in through the pores in his human flesh, lingering in his central nervous system, settling in the void that his Grace had left behind. Castiel had never felt so afraid-a finite existence was not something he'd thought much about-but he also had never felt so alive. He understood, now, why Dean did the things he did. Why he stayed up too late or drank too much or drove too fast. He suspected that with finite existence came recklessness.

Ida came up to him, her arms laden with clothes. "I've shopped for teenaged boys for years," she said, "It's a nice change to shop for a man. I haven't had much opportunity since my husband died." She led him to the dressing room, and lined up the clothes in the order that she wanted him to try them on. "You just show me the ones you like, alright?" she said.

"Thank you," said Castiel.

She smiled, her dark eyes shining. "I'll be out here," Ida said, "Let me know if you need other sizes or anything."

The first outfit was unsatisfactory. Dean had, at length, lectured Castiel about the disadvantages of "skinny jeans" and Castiel found that he agreed with his hunter friend as he hopped around the narrow dressing room.

The second outfit was less cumbersome-the khaki pants were quite comfortable, and Castiel admired the pleated fronts-but the now-human discovered he unduly and irrationally hated the color orange. He threw the shirt in the corner as if Lilith herself had sewn it.

The third outfit reminded him of Dean. The jeans were not too loose, but comfortable, and the shirt was a deep blue plaid that matched Castiel's eyes. When the former angel looked in the dressing room's small and slightly-tilted mirror, he looked very much like a Winchester. He shrugged on the black canvas coat with fleece lining that Ida had handed him, and he cocked a half-smile, the way he had seen Dean smile at many tightly-clothed females in bars over the years.

A human smiled back at him.

Castiel walked out into the store in the third outfit, and Ida clapped her hands together and said, "Look at you! See, you just needed a little cleaning up!" She handed him a pair of blue mittens that matched the plaid shirt. "I hate cold fingers," she confessed, "And I think you might too." She winked at him. "C'mon, let's get you all settled up."

After they left Wal-Mart, Ida insisted on driving Castiel to the nearest bus station and purchasing him a ticket on the next bus to Kansas. "You told me that your family is there," she said, as she pressed an extra $20 into his mittened palm, "It would kill me to be away from my kids if times were tough. Family has to stick together, right?" She hugged him. "Take care of yourself, Cas."

"God bless you," he said. He meant it.

"You too, honey. You too."

The next bus to Kansas arrived in an hour. He'd already phoned Dean and told him he was coming. Dean had insisted on coming to pick him up from the station. "I've left you on your own too long," he said, "Besides, I can't take much more of Sam's bitching. Getting me out of the bunker for an hour will be doing me a favor, trust me."

True to Dean's word, the hunter was there at the station when Castiel arrived, leaning back against the Impala just the way Castiel had imagined. He looked Castiel up and down when the now-human approached the car, flicking his eyes over Castiel's new clothes like they were a new case to solve. "Hey Cas," he said, cocking that half-smile Castiel knew well.

"Hello, Dean." He wanted to embrace the Winchester, but knew the other man wouldn't appreciate Castiel's newfound appreciation for moments of physical affection.

"Nice shirt," Dean said with a smirk.

"It makes me feel like a Winchester," Castiel admitted.

Dean's smirk turned into a smile, and Castiel decided that maybe humanity wasn't so cold after all.


End file.
